The Holmdel Township Committee voted to approve resolutions on June 13, 2023 that will begin the process of acquiring the 43-acre Crawford Hill property where the Holmdel Horn radio antenna resides.
Many local residents have sought to protect and preserve the historically significant antenna that was used to discover the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR); I wrote about these efforts in a previous post.
The Crawford Hill site is owned by a private developer who would like to build a townhouse project on the site – this has met with opposition from historic preservation and land use groups. The township wishes to keep the “unique property” safe, and ensure the National Historic Landmark status of the Horn antenna. The township’s plan is the reimage the site as a park and educational center – which I think is just fantastic!
I was alerted to the situation with the Holmdel Horn by Janet Jackel, a physicist, former Bell Labs employee, IEEE Fellow, and president of Friends of Holmdel Open Space. In her most recent email to me, she invite me to visit the park when it opens, and I would just LOVE to! I hope the park has a huge grand-opening; I’m pretty sure I can drag quite a few astronomers with me.
To read more about the resolutions and more history of the site, see this recent Patch article.
Source: https://patch.com/new-jersey/holmdel-hazlet/holmdel-oks-first-steps-making-horn-antenna-site-its-own
